Petersen Studio Court

Hansel and Gretel architecture may be a public menace in some quarters, but in this town it's a cultural treasure. We speak here of the Petersen Studio Court, a.k.a. Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 552. This sweetly wacky 1921 enclave of storybook cottages wedged between a thrift shop and a Korean restaurant on Beverly Boulevard is no mere representative sample. It's an early forerunner of the 1920s fairy tale buildings scattered throughout L.A.